By Rebekah Bailey, Staff Writer, Emerson College
As many of you know, Friday was the National Day of Silence. For those of you who don’t know what the DoS is, “the National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.”
Yes. To call attention to the fact that queer teens are bullied and silenced, we’re… going to silence ourselves.
I’ve always had problems with keeping quiet. If I’m told I need to stay quiet, I can’t. When I choose to, I can be a very quiet person. But I don’t want to be quiet anymore about my gender identity or sexuality—I did that enough in my early adolescence. I want to shout it from the rooftops and screw the people who don’t like it. However, I know that that’s not safe for me to do since people like me get killed for broadcasting their identity. I understand the concept of it; however, I think they got it backwards. If you want to call attention to the hate young queer people receive, you should speak up—keeping quiet is the opposite of what you need to do. Nothing changed for queer people until some transwomen got fed up and started throwing bricks and coffee mugs at police officers.
I understand how queer people would want to take the silence they’ve been forced into and turn it against their oppressors. However, I don’t understand how cisgender straight people participate in the DoS and think they’ve contributed in a meaningful way. In this heterocentric, ciscentric society, the only way allies can help the queer community is by speaking up. Since straight allies hold the privilege in our society and by being silent they are aiding in our oppression, not ending it. The Day of Silence makes sense for queer people. We’ve been silenced, sometimes our whole lives, so we’re going to use it to protest the silencing of others. However, when straight allies participate, they remove the only way that I want them participating in the queer community, which is educating other straight people and helping the queer community. When I see straight people talk about how they were mocked for participating in the DoS, they often compare it to how queer people are bullied. Spoiler: it’s not the same thing. There is a difference between oppression and voluntarily keeping silent. It’s not helping when you keep quiet. I also have a big problem with straight allies appropriating the struggles of queer people, especially queer youth. You don’t get to pretend you know what queer oppression is if you participate in the DoS. Because at the end of the day, you get to take the duct tape off, throw away the sign, and start talking again. That’s not how it works for queer people. The most I can take off at the end of the day is my binder. I don’t get to take off my identity.
Our voices give us power to change things. Why should we take that away from ourselves?
Rebekah Bailey is an over-caffeinated freshman WLP major from eastern Kentucky. She enjoys Stargate, violently critiquing other people’s work, procrastinating on Tumblr, and being sassy with her roommates. She has had a 5-point plan to take over the world ready since fifth grade, and had it been for math she would have become an evil genius physicist (but since math is hard, she just writes about them).
As many of you know, Friday was the National Day of Silence. For those of you who don’t know what the DoS is, “the National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.”
Yes. To call attention to the fact that queer teens are bullied and silenced, we’re… going to silence ourselves.
I’ve always had problems with keeping quiet. If I’m told I need to stay quiet, I can’t. When I choose to, I can be a very quiet person. But I don’t want to be quiet anymore about my gender identity or sexuality—I did that enough in my early adolescence. I want to shout it from the rooftops and screw the people who don’t like it. However, I know that that’s not safe for me to do since people like me get killed for broadcasting their identity. I understand the concept of it; however, I think they got it backwards. If you want to call attention to the hate young queer people receive, you should speak up—keeping quiet is the opposite of what you need to do. Nothing changed for queer people until some transwomen got fed up and started throwing bricks and coffee mugs at police officers.
I understand how queer people would want to take the silence they’ve been forced into and turn it against their oppressors. However, I don’t understand how cisgender straight people participate in the DoS and think they’ve contributed in a meaningful way. In this heterocentric, ciscentric society, the only way allies can help the queer community is by speaking up. Since straight allies hold the privilege in our society and by being silent they are aiding in our oppression, not ending it. The Day of Silence makes sense for queer people. We’ve been silenced, sometimes our whole lives, so we’re going to use it to protest the silencing of others. However, when straight allies participate, they remove the only way that I want them participating in the queer community, which is educating other straight people and helping the queer community. When I see straight people talk about how they were mocked for participating in the DoS, they often compare it to how queer people are bullied. Spoiler: it’s not the same thing. There is a difference between oppression and voluntarily keeping silent. It’s not helping when you keep quiet. I also have a big problem with straight allies appropriating the struggles of queer people, especially queer youth. You don’t get to pretend you know what queer oppression is if you participate in the DoS. Because at the end of the day, you get to take the duct tape off, throw away the sign, and start talking again. That’s not how it works for queer people. The most I can take off at the end of the day is my binder. I don’t get to take off my identity.
Our voices give us power to change things. Why should we take that away from ourselves?
Rebekah Bailey is an over-caffeinated freshman WLP major from eastern Kentucky. She enjoys Stargate, violently critiquing other people’s work, procrastinating on Tumblr, and being sassy with her roommates. She has had a 5-point plan to take over the world ready since fifth grade, and had it been for math she would have become an evil genius physicist (but since math is hard, she just writes about them).